The Big One requested a house rabbit, this morning. It is suspected that she has been briefed by Fifth Columnists.

Real shame about those allergies, eh?

I am staying in a hotel room, and there is some pipe, airlock/Aircon feedback noises going on. It sounds like something from a GSYBE album! It is kinda awesome, but I feel it will be annoying come sleep time.

I just had to call a company in France as I've ordered some games that haven't turned up. The guy on the other end of the phone spoke English brilliantly.

I feel a bit dumb now...

Tête de merde.

I'm guessing that's the only bit of GCSE French you remember as well then?

Le singe est sur la autobus!

Nothing I like more than brushing up on a foreign tongue.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/07/slender-man-into-the-woods-how-an-online-bogeyman-inspired-children-to-kill

Interesting article about those two girls that stabbed their friend to get on Slenderman's good side.

Fascinating and scary all at the same time.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/07/slender-man-into-the-woods-how-an-online-bogeyman-inspired-children-to-kill

Interesting article about those two girls that stabbed their friend to get on Slenderman's good side.

Dear colleague

Earlier this year, President Supreme Cheese declared that compliance - and, in particular, the prevention of bid-rigging - was one of the most important elements of management. He has now also recorded an interview on the subject, which I strongly encourage you to watch and/or read the English script.

As you know, we operate in almost every country in the world, including areas where bribery and corruption risks are significant. I would like to remind you that we have zero tolerance for wrongdoing, even in areas of high risk where we must be particularly vigilant in our business dealings.

This Saturday, December 9, is designated by the United Nations as “International Anti-Corruption Day”. This day is intended to raise international awareness of the importance of honesty in business dealings, and to showcase innovative ways to fight against corruption.

We are accordingly designating the week of December 11 as “Compliance Week”. We will be launching a refreshed version of our mandatory online compliance training. This training will help you to identify and handle problematic situations, especially those related to bribery, antitrust, and export control. Look out for details on this, and other announcements regarding compliance-related activities, during the week.

We require every one of you, no matter what role you perform, to be familiar with the local laws, internal guidelines and compliance risks in your respective country or sector. Accordingly, all managers should have discussions with their teams, to ensure that everyone has done the training and has the opportunity to ask any compliance-related questions. Please speak with management or the appropriate function (such as EMEIA Compliance, Export Control, Legal & Commercial, Customs, etc.) if you need support.

Thank you for doing your part to embed compliance in our daily business.


The EMEIA Big Cheese

A message from our Big Cheese

I occasionally get offered a free coffee, fruit or toast on site. Do you think this constitutes an attempt at bribery to elicit a higher priority service?

If I go out with my contact from A Particular Place, I can't even buy them a drink. Not that I would, go out with them.

I don't understand, he put an extra one on there to see if it would get stolen and it did?

I suspect he put an extra one on there to make sure the original three made it to their destination

Stop shaking your aunties.

Well you’d know if you took the training

I’ve taken the earlier versions and will take this one too, and The Rulez are essentially not very different from the ones we had in the civil service. You may think that an low level engineer might not have anything to worry about respect of bribery, but if I was swapping out a part that had clearly been damaged by a customer, they might offer some kind of inducement not to report it as such to avoid being charged for the replacement, or when it’s a ‘no fault found’ call e.g. they hadn’t checked whether a ‘faulty’ printer was plugged in at the mains, for which they are charged for the uneccesary visit. I haven’t been offered anything yet,but I could be.

I did get given a bottle of single malt by the director of the regional DTI Fraud Team a few years ago, after sorting out a lot of niggling I.T. problems they had, but that was just thanks for a job well done, and after the event, so didn’t infringe any regs.

Our bribery training mentions something like “would you mind or be embarrassed if everyone else in the office knew you’d received this gift instead of them” which seems to tug nicely at the bribery guilt heart strings.

Doesn’t stop me enjoying the pastries HP bring in every time we see them though.

That basically says "if you have no scruples, it's fine to help yourself"